Fibre cuts threaten Nigeria's digital economy, who pays?

When Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, signed the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Order in June 2024, the Federal Government aimed to shield telecommunications assets from relentless vandalism and physical damage. By classifying fibre lines, base stations, and data centres as vital national security installations, the order sought to impose deterrent penalties and curb unauthorised tampering.

Yet two years on, chronic breaches continue to impose steep financial penalties on operators, diverting capital from network expansion to nonstop emergency repairs and destabilising internet reliability across the country.

In 2023, before the order, MTN Nigeria suffered more than 6,000 fibre cuts in a single year—averaging roughly 16-17 severed lines per day.

Fast-forward to 2025, past the presidential order: the numbers increased; between January and July, the telco recorded 5,478 fibre cuts. That pushed its daily average to over 26 snapped cables.

In plain terms, instead of scaring reckless diggers and vandals away and improving coordination between construction firms and other key stakeholders, the new rules led MTN Nigeria to fix about eight more broken cables per day than before the order was introduced.

The broader telecoms industry recorded 19,384 cuts between January and August 2025, further pushing the daily average to 80. In the first nine months of 2026 alone, Telecom networks suffered over 44,000 fibre cuts—averaging more than 160 cuts every single day, mostly from uncoordinated road construction, ditch digging, and theft. The primary culprits remain uncoordinated civil engineering projects, road expansions, and persistent vandalism.

These disruptions expose significant enforcement gaps, raising a central question of who ultimately pays when statutory protections fail to stop contractors and vandals from repeatedly severing the nation’s digital backbone

Building on Tinubu’s signing of the executive order, the legal framework establishes vital statutory mechanisms to defend the nation’s digital backbone.

Every fibre cut sets Nigeria’s digital economy back. Source: Gettyimages

Under the CNII Order, telecommunications assets—including submarine landing cables, terrestrial fibre-optic lines, switching centres, and data storage hubs—are formally designated as vital national security installations.

The framework empowers security agencies, led by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), to monitor, inspect, and defend digital infrastructure against willful destruction, uncoordinated civil works, and cyber-physical intrusions.

Even so, its ultimate success hinges on swift and consistent prosecution.

Fibre cuts drain expansion capital

Constant network degradation forces telecommunications operators to absorb substantial operational costs, squeezing capital investment. In the first half of 2026, direct repairs across 5,934 fibre incidents cost operators over ₦2.2 billion ($1.64 million).

These emergency expenses undermine the ₦2.13 trillion ($1.58 billion) in capital expenditure committed by network and tower companies, diverting critical resources from new rollouts to restoring existing footprints.

This financial drain has a long track record; it is not new. According to the GSMA Nigeria Digital Economy Report, MTN Nigeria spent ₦11.1 billion ($8.26 million) repairing and relocating 2,502 kilometres of fibre across 2022 and 2023. That figure comprised ₦4.4 billion ($3.27 million) for 1,069 km in 2022 and ₦6.7 billion ($4.98 million) for 1,433 km in 2023—money that GSMA notes could have funded 870 kilometres of greenfield fibre in underserved communities.

Across the wider industry, losses in 2023 alone reached an estimated ₦27 billion ($20.08 million) in direct repairs and lost revenue.

The economic stakes are huge for a country where its ICT sector delivered over ₦6 trillion ($4.46 billion) in real output in Q2 2026, with telecoms contributing 9.72% (₦5.20 trillion / $3.87 billion) to total real GDP: every severed cable is no longer just a temporary network glitch, but an immediate drag on national GDP.

Connectivity gap worsens local challenges

Nigeria’s infrastructure struggles unfold against broader regional constraints. A recent GSMA report on African spectrum policy highlighted that African operators averaged 570 MHz of spectrum below 7 GHz in 2025—far below the global baseline of 750 MHz—while paying 24% more per unit of spectrum. GSMA cautions that every 10% increase in spectrum costs relative to revenue trims 5G coverage expansion by six percentage points.

Fast 5G networks require robust underground cabling to ensure that banking apps, POS machines, and online money transfers work instantly and without failure.

Underlying infrastructure carried massive financial volumes in early 2026: transactions on the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) surpassed ₦1.053 quadrillion ($783.2 billion) in Q1 alone, alongside millions of daily mobile money and point-of-sale payments. Governed by a 23-year-old regulatory model dating back to the 2G voice era, the sector is directly threatened by physical fibre cuts, which directly threaten overall financial stability.

Fibre backhaul links network base stations directly to core data centres. When cables are cut, the impact cascades into dropped voice calls, crippled data throughput, and widespread service outages.

For enterprises, cuts mean payment gateways collapsing, staff hours lost, and cloud downtime. For subscribers, disruptions translate into sluggish connections, failed payments, and paying higher rates for diminished service.

These disruptions compound consumer frustration following the NCC’s tariff revision, which permitted price hikes of up to 50% to offset soaring operational costs. When operators sink recurring revenue into avoidable repairs, network optimisation stalls, and users pay the price through degraded reliability.

Why has the CNII Order not solved the problem?

The NCC acknowledged the continuing challenge of stakeholder coordination in its August 2026 intervention: “Our interests are aligned; what has too often been missing is a dependable system of early coordination,” said the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Aminu Maida.

But coordination can only work when manpower is adequate. The NSCDC’s limited manpower and operational resources expose the enforcement challenges facing one of Nigeria’s agencies tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure.

With roughly 63,000 personnel deployed across 774 local government areas to manage a broad range of national security duties, dedicated static protection for thousands of kilometres of buried fibre is logistically impossible. Even with its efforts on surveillance technology and systematic prosecution, legal protection on paper cannot secure infrastructure without adequate personnel.

The government must therefore measure the success of the CNII Order by tangible results: fewer cuts, faster remediation, and lower repair bills. Until enforcement deters would-be offenders, operators will keep burning through capital on repeated repairs instead of expanding coverage—leaving subscribers to foot the bill for an unprotected digital economy.

Airtel Nigeria, the country’s second-largest network operator, now lets subscribers see nearby 4G and 5G network sites, including those undergoing upgrades and planned installations, through a new feature on the My Airtel Africa app.

The feature, called Airtel Open Network, also allows customers to report poor network experiences directly to the telecom operator. Launched in Lagos on October 30, 2026, the platform displays network sites within a 500-metre radius of a subscriber’s location. It uses visual indicators to distinguish active sites, those being upgraded, and locations where new sites are planned.

Nigeria is the first of Airtel Africa’s 14 operating markets to introduce the feature. By combining network visibility with customer feedback, Airtel hopes to identify coverage gaps and direct engineering attention to areas where subscribers experience poor connectivity.

The move tackles a persistent problem in Nigeria’s telecoms market: network coverage does not always translate to reliable connectivity. Airtel hopes greater network visibility and direct customer feedback will help identify coverage gaps and improve service quality.

A Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) assessment reported by TechCabal found that 78% of major roads had mobile signals, but only about 42% offered stable, high-speed 4G or 5G connectivity. The report also identified more than 120 critical black spots where mobile signals were completely unavailable.

*With Airtel Open Network, subscribers can report poor network experiences directly to Airtel Nigeria. Image Source: Getty Images.*

Speaking at the launch, Dinesh Balsingh, Airtel Nigeria’s CEO, said the platform was designed to make network information more accessible while giving customers a direct channel to communicate service problems.

Trust, he says, grows when customers can see what is happening and know that their concerns are being heard. “With Open Network, we are giving customers greater visibility into our network and a more direct way to tell us where their experience falls short,” Balsingh said.

Airtel said it would use feedback submitted through the platform alongside its infrastructure investments to guide network upgrades. This could help its engineering teams identify locations requiring improvements in coverage, capacity and reliability.

The initiative also gives subscribers a way to report localised problems that may not be apparent in broader network performance assessments.

In his remarks, NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Aminu Maida, said accessible network information could complement the regulator’s efforts to improve service quality.

“The Commission’s assessment of service quality will continue to be guided by evidence and the standards that apply across the industry,” Maida said.

Maida wants operators to continue improving their services beyond minimum regulatory requirements, particularly by addressing persistent connectivity challenges.

However, seeing a nearby mast does not guarantee reliable reception. Airtel acknowledged that indoor coverage, building structures, handset specifications, and network congestion can affect individual subscribers’ experience.

The NCC’s network quality assessment framework also considers factors such as dropped calls, network congestion, availability and data speeds, showing why the number of nearby sites alone cannot determine service quality.

Airtel said Open Network would not automatically resolve network problems but would make it easier for customers to understand available infrastructure and report service gaps. The company plans to roll out demonstrations and user guides across digital, retail, and traditional media channels in the coming weeks.

Airtel Nigeria generated $1.01 billion in revenue between April and September 2026, crossing the $1 billion mark for the first time since the same period in 2022, when it recorded $1.04 billion, according to the company’s financial statements.

Its mobile money subsidiary, SmartCash PSB, also recorded its highest-ever half-year revenue of $10 million, as efforts to grow its banking business through a zero-fee model and a 15% annual interest rate on savings deposits begin to gain traction.

The results show Airtel Nigeria, with 61.7 million subscribers, recovering from the currency volatility that weighed on its earnings after the naira was devalued in 2023. Since 2025, improved macroeconomic conditions, including a more stable naira and regulatory approval for market-reflective telecom tariffs, have supported revenue growth across the sector. MTN Nigeria, for instance, reported a 23.6% jump in nine-month revenue to ₦4.61 trillion ($3.42 billion) in 2025.

“Higher reported currency growth compared to constant currency growth was due to the appreciation in the Nigerian naira from a weighted average NGN/USD rate of 1,553 in prior period to NGN/USD 1,360 in current period,” Airtel Africa said about its Nigerian unit.

Airtel Nigeria’s revenue growth of 44.62% helped push its average revenue per user up by 27.27%.

Beyond currency growth, data consumption also supported the growth. Airtel Nigeria’s smartphone penetration reached 56.8%, while monthly smartphone data usage per customer increased to 16.7GB from 12.7GB in the corresponding period.

The improved performance in Nigeria contributed to Airtel Africa’s overall revenue, which rose by 28.20% to $3.82 billion. The group’s profit for the period also increased by 20.21% to $452 million.

“Reported currency revenue growth was higher than constant currency growth reflecting currency appreciation in Nigeria and Zambia,” Airtel Africa said.

However, rising operating costs are beginning to weigh on margins. Airtel Africa said recent geopolitical developments, which have resulted in a doubling of fuel prices in Nigeria, are putting pressure on its earnings.

“Our cost efficiency programme mitigated these pressures, limiting the sequential margin decline to approximately 130 bps, from 58.8% in Q1’27 to 57.5% in Q2’27. Operating free cash flow increased by 28.2% to $409m driven by strong underlying EBITDA growth, despite significantly higher capex during the period,” the company said.

SmartCash PSB, Airtel Nigeria’s mobile money subsidiary, saw its customer base increase by 110% to 4.2 million, while revenue grew by 150% to $10 million during the six-month period.

Despite the growth, SmartCash remains the smallest of Airtel Africa’s mobile money operations, contributing just 1.19% of the group’s revenue. Its latest performance, however, suggests that Airtel Nigeria’s efforts to build a more competitive mobile money business are beginning to produce results.

In March 2026, SmartCash said it had crossed nearly three million active users as it doubled down on a zero-fee banking model and a 15% annual interest rate on savings deposits.

SmartCash generated just $6 million in revenue as of December 2025, according to Airtel Africa’s nine-month financial statements. Its latest $10 million revenue represents a 66.67% increase over that figure.

The growth comes as Nigerian telecom operators seek to strengthen their mobile money businesses and capture a larger share of the country’s digital financial services market.

In August 2026, MoMo PSB, MTN Nigeria’s mobile money subsidiary, migrated to a new platform powered by Alipay+, upgrading its fintech infrastructure. Revenue from its core mobile money business subsequently increased by 102.2%, while wallet balances more than quadrupled to ₦43.8 billion ($32.54 million).

But SmartCash still has considerable ground to cover to catch up with established players. OPay, Nigeria’s mobile money market leader, generated $467.06 million in revenue in the first half of 2026.